WordPress events all over the world never stop, not even in the summer time. More and more OTGSians are becoming involved in the WordPress community. In August, Lauren Jeffcoat spoke at WordCamp Toronto and OTGS members from Argentina organized the next WordPress Meetup in La Plata.
WordCamp Toronto 2016
As previously posted, Lauren Jeffcoat was selected as speaker for WordCamp Toronto held August 6-7. Here she talked about the “The power of having a video library on your website”.
It was her first talk after quite a long break, so she was nervous, but you know, it’s like riding a bike. She traveled to another country and landed without having any acquaintances. However, the WordPress community welcomed her with open arms and as Lauren is very outgoing when meeting people, it was a perfect match.
But let’s hear it in Lauren’s words:
This experience has taught me that it is okay to step outside of your comfort zone. When you open yourself up to new experiences, there is always some dread that you may fail. And you might! But if you don’t even take that risk, you will never know the opportunities that you could be missing out on. Don’t let fear stop you from exploring new places and new adventures. And never underestimate the potential to be great. Be confident, be brave, and enjoy everything by living the moment to the best of your abilities.
We are sharing her slides if it wasn’t possible for you to attend to WordCamp Toronto, or if you were there but you want to wrap some details.
I know that our Argentinian team is not enjoying of the summer right now, but I know they are a tough team.
WordPress Meetup La plata: Laura, Otto and Mercedes
Otto Wald, Mercedes Barreda and Laura de Figueiredo keep organising the WordPress Meetup La Plata. Let’s hear in their own words, how they experienced this meetup this time:
Otto
The group keeps growing, we are more than a hundred and sixty now. And more than thirty attended the meetup.
It was really nice. We had a talk about “My basic plugins”, those that you always install when developing a site. The people were really engaged in the debate and we also had time for a very active networking “mate” and “sandwichitos de miga” (courtesy of our sponsors).
Again, it was a rewarding activity. The people were grateful that we organised the activity and were willing to get involved. We already have two speakers who volunteered for the next one.
And we met our clients there :). We had very positive feedback about WPML and Toolset Types.
Finally, I have to mention the amazing “budín” that Laura made for us. It’s worth the effort of organizing a MeetUp.
WordPress Meetup La Plata: My basic plugins’s talk
Laura
We were in the room at Pasaje Dardo Rocha (MeetUp spot) when the first attendee arrived. I approached him (Jorge is his name) and asked how he found out about the MeetUp. He said he is a WPML user and that he had received a blog post in his inbox from us inviting him to the event. He was so excited to get an invitation coming from one of his favorite plugins team to attend a WP event in his own city.
He never thought he’d meet some of the people behind WPML, which for him was a product from a company in Europe with people working from Europe.
Jorge shared with me that he got WPML for-life and already used it with 5 clients, and that he is so happy with what WPML can do. He mentioned the modules he uses, but he just had a question about Gravity forms, so there I called Otto for the details, and they went on talking about more technical aspects of the plugin. It was great meeting a happy user eager to be part of our local community.
Mercedes
I talked to some other people, I played the social butterfly a bit. I was surprised to see that mostly everyone who I talked to had come because of other sources of invitation and not the Meetup.com page. As a matter of fact, just 2 or 3 people, were second-time attendees. Everybody else were first-comers. We are now expanding on how we should communicate with the community so that we reach more people: the old and the new. It was a good experience to learn about this and also to discover how people use WordPress in so many ways.
WordPress Meetup La Plata: And the famous “Laura’s Budín”
Upcoming events
I have to dedicate a special section for Lauren. In my previous post, I mentioned that she will be speaking at WordCamp Tampa 2016 that will be held on September 10th-11st. But she has received some confirmations and she will also be speaking at WordCamp Raleigh 2016 on September 24th-25th and WordCamp Rochester 2016 on October 15th. Furthermore, she will be organiser of next WordCamp Wilmington 2016 and she has started her own WordPress Myrtle Beach Meetup. That girl is on fire!
Finally, I’m working as organiser of the next WordCamp Sevilla 2016. It will be held in less than a month, but the most important thing is: I was selected as organiser of the next WordCamp Europe 2017 in Paris!
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